B.C. Supreme Court certifies class action over prison conditions

GRAPHIC WARNING: The following details may disturb some readers. 

The B.C. Supreme Court has certified a class action lawsuit against the Government of Canada over alleged poor conditions in a federal prison in the Fraser Valley during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The suit alleges that prisoners were confined to their cells for more than 23 hours of the day, for weeks at a time, at Mission Institution, which saw more than 120 inmates and staff members infected by May of 2020 — with one inmate dying.

An affidavit filed by inmate Dean Christopher Roberts claims the prison’s outbreak response measures were draconian and unsafe. None of the allegations have yet been proven in court.

He says inmates were confined to their cells for the vast majority of the day, with only a 20-minute period in the day when they were allowed out for showers, phone calls, or cleaning — meaning that if he wanted to call his family, he couldn’t take a shower that day.

The class action says that falls well within the definition of solitary confinement, which was ruled unconstitutional by a B.C. appeals court in 2019 — just months before the start of the pandemic.

“Prolonged lockdowns are devastating to the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual health of people in prison,” the B.C. Civil Liberties Association wrote in 2021.

“Those who are subjected to extended usage of these procedures suffer from a wide variety of adverse effects, including: anxiety; hallucinations; panic; paranoia; ruminations and intrusive obsessional thoughts; self-harm; social withdrawal; suicidal thoughts and behaviours; and mental illness.”

Canada’s Attorney General opposed the class action certification on the basis that the case is concerned with medical isolation, not solitary confinement.

Justice Michael Tammen said that at first blush, he found that argument to be meritless.

“The label attached to the separate confinement is largely irrelevant. It is the treatment endured by the inmate which is important,” he noted in his written reasons on May 30.

However, he noted a trial judge may be persuaded of the defendant’s arguments going forward.

Roberts says inmates at Mission Institution went almost a month without going outside at all.

He said, “The loneliness and despair was evident on nearly every inmate’s face.”

Some inmates harmed themselves, Roberts alleges, including one prisoner who sewed his own mouth shut using black thread — which none of the correctional staff noticed.

He says another admitted that he was considering assaulting the next guard to open his door, thinking if he was transferred to a maximum security prison, he might be better off and would be “treated like a human being.”

Roberts says inmates were made to feel as though they did something wrong, even though the only place the virus could have come from was outside the prison, meaning staff members must have brought it in.

By May, he said, “The levels of frustration were the highest I had ever encountered in over 25 years of incarceration.”

He claims the institution had no plans to lift the lockdown — even after the outbreak was declared over — until a vaccine was found.

The affidavit documents incidents in the prison, according to Roberts, until November 2022.

For its part, the Union of Correctional Service Officers also claimed in 2020 that the federal government hadn’t provided members with adequate PPE.

1130 NewsRadio has reached out to the union and Correctional Services Canada for comment.

The class action would include any inmate of Mission Institution who was incarcerated during a COVID-19 outbreak between March 11, 2020 and the date of certification and who was confined to their cell for 20 hours or more in a day, and deprived of the opportunity to interact with others for at least two hours in a day, for a period of 15 or more consecutive days.

The lawsuit was officially certified Friday, May 30.